A pyrosome is a colonial tunicate made up of thousands of small individual zooids fused into a single hollow, tube-shaped colony that can stretch up to 20 meters long, drifting through temperate and tropical oceans worldwide. Each zooid draws in water and expels it through a shared central cavity, and the whole colony inches forward by combining every zooid's tiny jet of water, filtering plankton as it goes with one of the highest feeding rates known among drifting animals. Photobacterium bacteria housed in the zooids' light organs give the colony an eerie blue-green glow, the source of its name, drawn from the Greek for fire.
Facts
Classification
System (Realm) Living or Extinct Scientific Name Connections
Child Taxon Of
Source Wikidata: Pyrosome
In Biome
Source Wikipedia: Pyrosome
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Pyrosome
system (MediaWiki batch-API article extract states it plainly)
They usually live in the upper layers of the open ocean in warm seas, although some may be found at greater depths.
Infobox: taxon
Pyrosomatidae
- In Biome: Open Ocean, Wikipedia intro: "osoma, Pyrosomella and Pyrostremma, and eight species. They usually live in the upper layers of the open ocean in warm seas, although some may be found at great..."
In Group: Tunicates (Sea Squirts and Pyrosomes), Lead
Pyrosomes are free-floating colonial tunicates in family Pyrosomatidae.
View the Source2. Pyrosome (Wikipedia)
Wikidata: Pyrosome
- Wikidata Q4913878, class allow-list match (w-wdresolver-0926)
- Child Taxon Of: Thaliacea, Wikidata parent-taxon (P171) chain
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